HE Course Guide 2024 final web - Flipbook - Page 15
The Education and Training Consortium (ETC)
was formally constituted in 2001 as the (then)
Consortium for Post-Compulsory Education
and Training (CPCET), a pioneering collaborative
partnership between FE and the University of
Huddersfield focusing on teacher education
awards for the ‘Lifelong Learning Sector’. The scale and complexity of the collaboration is unusual (with
over 30 partners who are mainly, but not exclusively, situated in the North of England). Geographically, ETC
members are dispersed across the north of England from Hull to Liverpool, but there are member institutions
as far afield as Northumberland, Norfolk and Essex. The Consortium includes large, urban General Colleges
of Further Education (GFECs) as well as smaller FE institutions. The open nature of the relationships between
partners is a key characteristic. In the field of Lifelong Learning teacher education, the rationale for close
partnership underpins curriculum design and development, research and human resource planning. As key
sites of practice, the colleges within the Consortium offer a huge store of knowledge and expertise.
As the accrediting institution, The University of Huddersfield retains responsibility for academic standards
and quality assurance; however, the Consortium arrangement was designed to maximise partner college
involvement in managing the development and delivery of provision. The distribution of new knowledge and
innovation in teaching and learning constitutes a considerable challenge within the context of a large and
geographically dispersed learning network, but the ETC demonstrates that effective collaboration between
HE and FE can be of great benefit financially, strategically, academically and culturally to both
parties. The key beneficiaries are the students who, in this
case, are both in-service and pre-service
trainee teachers and, of course,
the FE learners they
teach.
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